Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

I promised myself a while ago that I'd start learning RoR, to keep myself interested in web development.  It's taken me a while but I've finally taken the first steps.

I had a choice - either learn .NET 2.0 (I may still do this) or go in a new direction.  I decided that .NET, much as I like it, isn't where all the action is, so after a bit of research, I decided to become a Rails developer.

It's a scary new world - Rails requires quite a bit of work to get up and running on Windows (most of the toolset are oriented towards OSX and *nix).  I'm getting there, though.

I've now got my new laptop (more later) setup with most everything I (think) I need and I've invested in some shared hosting space with WebFaction.

I've got a few projects on the go, including some social networking stuff and my own websites (currently on Wordpress and .NET).  Hopefully, I'll be moving this blog to Mephisto soon, once I work out how to migrate the database (I'm having some trouble with MySql at the moment).

I wasn't hopeful of having a good race at Lochaber, and my fears proved to be founded, unfortunately.

I hadn't been off the couch for 10 days before the event because of a particularly nasty cold.  I kept hoping I'd recover in time to get some training done beforehand but it never happened.  I was ok on the day but I think I had de-trained a bit.

The weather was warm but a bit drizzly on and off, which was much better than the situation at London.

My target up to 2 weeks ago had been 3:15 but because of my illness, I had no way off knowing what I was capable of, so I decided to just aim for that and see what happened.  I kept to the pace for the first 10 miles or so but ominously, my heart rate was sky high, although it didn't feel like I was working that hard.  I didn't feel great though.

I was running with Iain again, and I let him go after about 5 miles, as he was running maybe 10-20 seconds per mile quicker than me and I didn't want to blow up.

Just before the halfway turnaround, my quads started to tighten and I knew the game was up.  I slowed the pace a little over the next 5 miles or so but by the time I was at 18 miles I knew I was screwed.  Becky was waiting at the side of the road at that point, with extra gels and a drink for me and I really wanted to stop but I steeled myself and kept going.

By mile 20 my legs weren't working any more and I was reduced to a pathetic shuffle.  The next hour proved to be incredibly uncomfortable.  I really should have stopped because I pushed my legs over the edge but I don't like to quit - you learn a lot more about yourself through adversity.

I kept on going, walking for 100 metre stints occasionally (the ignominy) and eventually finished in about 3:54, just outside my Loch Ness time.

On the face of it, my last 10 days of no activity and illness can't have helped but I also think that I peaked too soon.  I was easily running 20 miles at 3:30 marathon pace 2 months ago, and I did well at Coniston but since then I've not felt great and my legs haven't been zippy.

Still, success teaches you nothing, so I'll use this to make some adjustments.  I was cursing the very idea of marathoning over the last few miles and vowed never to run another.  Despite the face that I can barely walk now and stairs are proving difficult, I think I can run a good marathon (Snowdonia last year proved that), so I'll have another go, I think.  I'm not sure when though.  Maybe Snowdonia again this year.  We'll have to see.

Our cat, Ollie, passed away today.

Understandably, we're both pretty upset at the moment. We'd had Ollie for about 6 years - we got him from a cat's refuge in Leek when Becky moved to London. So, as long as Becky and I have lived together, Ollie has too.

He was a lovely cat. He was playful and affectionate and loved to be around the two of us, moving into whichever room we were in. He always like attention but if you gave him too much, he liked to give you a wee nip. Because of this, I was always a little unsure if he'd be ok around Emily but he was never anything but gentle, despite a fair bit of provocation.

He'd been ill for quite a while, months. Not long after Emily was born, he started to lose weight and he stopped looking after himself. We took him to the vets months ago to see if anything was wrong but they couldn't find anything, despite doing blood tests. We just decided that he was a little depressed and he would right himself eventually. He never did.

This week, he went missing and turned up at the vet in Peebles. Someone had found him in the village and taken him to the Cat's Protection League, thinking he was stray. Luckily, he was chipped, so we got him back easily enough. I decided it was probably a good idea to have him checked by the vet again and this time they found that he had enlarged kidneys and that they were essentially failed, probably from a hereditary disease of some sort.

We brought him home for a day but he went downhill very quickly. His body had used up all his fat and muscle, so he didn't have the strength to even jump up onto the couch. With a heavy heart we took him back to the vet to spare him from any more pain.

The house seems a little emptier now without him. Goodbye, Ollie. We miss you.

We've just returned from our second (detailed) pregnancy scan and the 2 conclusions are:

• The baby appears healthy
• The baby appears to be a girl

So, good news all around.  There's no way to be 100% sure about the results of a scan but the midwife was very professional and thorough.

I'm happy we are (probably) going to have another girl.  I would, of course, have been pleased with a boy - I wouldn't have been outnumbered for one thing - but I like being a dad to a little girl, and 2 will be lovely, I'm sure.